


The music of Ophir

by Modlisznik



Category: The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Holidays, Parades, Worldbuilding, it's not a music until your ears are bleeding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 07:54:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16909116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Modlisznik/pseuds/Modlisznik
Summary: Captain Eliza Major has rather unique taste in music.





	The music of Ophir

"Denied", said the letter. It was the last one, and at this point, she had no hopes left. No technomancer will be sent to Ophir for the Parade.

Eliza Major threw her letter, and her plans, into the shredder.

How is she supposed to make the Dowser's Day Parade without the damn mancers?

It was one of her more dreader duties as the commander of the Ophirian Garrison — to supervise the Dowser's Day Parade. The whole Source lived with this for weeks, all castes planning to outdo each other in the most grandiose display of prosperity.

But they were the Army. No matter what Reachers or Seekers or Clerks come up with — every soul in Ophir waited for the Army. The Dowser himself waited for the Army. War or not, soldiers were not allowed to put a mediocre spectacle.

It was more than that, of course. People needed this; people sitting in their cosy homes in the Source, safe and well-fed, waited for that one day in a year when they could see their brave, mighty soldiers, parading before them like trained monkeys. They wanted to feel the thrill of witnessing the largest military force on the planet flexing its muscles, here in the capital city, far away from the front, safe and contained; tamed.

_Idiots,_ she thought.

But, dreaded as they were, she knew her duties. She looked at her tablet again.

What was taken care of? The music, thankfully: there would be the Comedians, and the Army Orchestra with their drums; soldiers needed their rhythm to march, and civilians seemed to like it, too. Every child in Ophir knew that rhythm.

After that, the Ophirian Guard of Honor, all shiny and bright in their dress uniforms, ceremonial sabres on their belts, chests heavy with medals. People loved it.

Then…

She bit her lip. Then there should be the technomancers.

But no matter how intensely she glared at the spreadsheet, the numbers stayed the same. There were almost no active duty mancers left in Ophir, not counting colonel Ian, who was going to give a speech after the Dowser. On her list she had only the freshly promoted Lieutenant Zachariah. And beside him, the only Mancers in the city were old, ill or disabled — sometimes simultaneously.

Nobody wanted to look at crippled technomancers.

She would have to make up for this somehow, redirect people's attention to somewhere else. Show them some shiny new toys, bright red, fresh from the factory. She switched tabs on her tablet: what the damned Seekers had come up with recently?

Armored vehicles ( _weight: 28 tonnes, four M19 machine guns_ )... Mortars so heavy that four pinchers were needed to pull it ( _cal. 240 mm, effective firing range 600–2200 m_ )... Yes, nice, but she needed something with an extra oomph! Something like…

...Like an railway gun Slava IV. Just look at this beauty: 106 tonnes of "don't fuck with our Shadowpaths", hydro-pneumatic recoil, 45 km of effective firing range… Yes, this would do. This would make people shut up.

_You want the real music of Ophir? Wait 'till these babies make a salvo._

Full of determination, Eliza started to write another letter. To show off these new toys, the Army would need to make necessary adjustments to the Exchange … but they would make this happen. If the Army didn’t give her mancers, they would give her serum to charm the civilians in some other way.

And for the mancers… _ah, fuck it_ , they would use doublers in their uniforms; civilians were too ignorant to notice. Mancers would throw a fit, no doubt, but tough luck. Everyone had to make sacrifices.

The show must go on.

**Author's Note:**

> A ton of kudos to WahlBuilder for fixing my grammar! And to Discord folk for the headcanons about Dowser's Day.


End file.
